Dr. Ma Juncai from the CAS Institute of Microbiology (IOM) was elected member of the Executive Board of the World Federation of Culture Collections (WFCC) at the 10th International Congress of Culture Collections (ICCC-10) held from Oct. 10 to 15 in Ibaraki, Japan.
A multidisciplinary commission of the International Union of Biological Sciences and a federation within the International Union of Microbiological Societies, WFCC is concerned with the collection, authentication, maintenance and distribution of cultures of microorganisms and cultured cells.
Of the 12 members of the executive board, Dr. Ma is the only representative from developing countries. Before him, two Chinese scientists, Prof. Song Dakang from IOM and Yuan Zenglin from the Pathogenic Bacteria Collection in Beijing, used to serve as members of the WFCC Executive Board.
Under the theme of "innovative roles of biological resource centers," ICCC-10 was attended by some 480 scholars from 40 countries. CAS researchrs made three presentations at the congress: Yang Huanming, director of the CAS Beijing Genomics Institute, talked about microbial world in the genomic era; He Chaozu from IOM on functional analysis for pathogenicity-related genes of xanthomoads using mutagenesis approach; and Ma Juncai from IOM on information network of bio-resources in China. IOM Director Gao Fu was invited to speak at the closing ceremony of the Congress.
